Brad Newley of Australia（R） drives to the basket （Photo credit： Getty）Photo Gallery%26gt；%26gt；
（BEIJING， August 10） -- Croatia beat Australia 97-82 in their first game of the Men's Basketball preliminary round on August 10.
The Oceania champions came up with an impressive 51% overall shooting accuracy， 60% from the two-point range， but could not deliver enough on defense to contain World No. 20 Croatia， who buried 63% of their two-pointers and sunk a respectable 75% from behind the arc.
"We won the pressure game. I think we have one foot in the quarterfinals now." said Croatia forward Zoran Planinic. "From now on， we are going to rely on our teamwork. We've got no superstars. We know Argentina， Lithuania and Russia are better teams than us， but I'm confident we've got enough to cause an upset in the next matches."
No outstanding shooters emerged on the court as the points were evenly distributed among the top players on the both sides.
Croatian captain Nikola Prkacin went off the bench to lead his lead with 16 points in just 11：28 minutes of play， making all five two pointers and six of seven shots from the foul line. Croatia got double-digit scores from four other players： Marko Banic with 16 points， Marko Tomas and Zoran Planinic with 12， and Kresimir Loncar with 10.
Matt Nielsen was the top scorer for the Aussies， netting 13 points and grabbing five rebounds while David Barlow weighed in with 12 points and Milwaukee Bucks star Andrew Bogut had 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment